I swear this happened to me once

This is a new ad from sony for bravia. Really cool spot. Done without CGI, just down the street from my old apartment in san francisco. I walked down this hill everyday to go to class or work at kbp.

lookout

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Dr. Roboto

Small robots designed by University of Nebraska researchers may allow doctors on Earth to do surgery on patients in space. The tiny, wheeled robots, which are as wide as a lipstick case, can be slipped into small incisions and computer-controlled by surgeons. Some robots are equipped with cameras and lights and can send back views of affected areas to surgeons. Others have surgical tools attached that can maneuver inside the body. Because several robots can be inserted through one incision, they could reduce the amount and size of cuts needed for surgery. The robots may be also helpful on battlefields as they could enable surgeons in other places to work on injured soldiers on the front line. A robot capable of doing biopsies is in the works and another is being designed that can be inserted into a person's stomach via the esophagus. They look a little large to me to be sticking into one's body. Maybe if it were a couple centimeters big, but this might as well be a highlighter. Maybe you don't feel pain in space.....
Aibo becomes a surgeon

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Good Idea

When Apple set out to change the landscape of music, did they envision that their groundbreaking tools would be used for other purposes? It's interesting that these consumer tools and devices are now giving Apple great additional exposure in the education, medicine and entertainment markets. Sometimes it's important to discover how certain groups of consumers are adapting your products. This learning could well help to open up new market opportunities. Its even more interesting how a great idea, transcends all and people begin to adapt it to their needs in their life. Apple being ever so clever, created something with legs that can be applied in many areas, and its design allow it to happen. Doctors carrying medical images on the ipod, peter jackson carrying king kong dailies on the pod, and stanford using the pod to distribute lectures. Really makes the device synonymous with our lives. Ok enough praising the ipod i have to listen to my itunes.
Check out my xrays
konga
higher education

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the maglev couch

his work of polished aluminum, strong magnets, and tasteful mahogany floats on the crest of a magnetic wave, floating with ambient air currents but never losing altitude. Star Trek, anyone? The magnetic levitation system, invented by sculptor and installation artist Tom Shannon, utilizes permanent magnets that never lose their strength, helping the piece hover indefinitely until it is physically moved. The sculpture is available in a 16-inch limited edition of 100 ($18,000) or a 6-foot limited edition of 8 ($90,000). If that is not the coolest way to spend nearly $100k, then I don’t know what it is. Super sick, super floaty. No hiding anything under the couch anymore.
hey no legs

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These walls be a wigglin

San Francisco artist and designer Elizabeth Hickock has created an hommage to her city unlike any you've probably ever seen before. It's also a testament to her skills in the kitchen. The prints have a peaceful, earie glow that pulls you in. The short film shows San Francisco in an earthquake, where fortunately the buildings only wobble. Pretty cool, I cant imagine how long this took to create. I can see my ex-house errr bomb shelter from here up by Coit Tower.

San Fran from a pan

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Another Cool Ad

This Guiness ad rules. Must be good planning behind it. Check it out.
Survival of the fittest

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Putting Heaven and Hell in their place

A collection of public domain early-20th Century charts by Clarence Larkin describing aspects of the Bible, including little arrows showing the direction of flow between the various heavens/hells and &c. For some reason i think all these hurricanes and suicide bombings, have zapped my interest in daily events. Come on people, make me curious. Its a slow day and this was one of a few things i thought was actually worth mentioning. Maybe im just in a halloween mood. Good to know if i ever get lost in the underworld, maps are available to ensure i dont wander down the wrong labrinyth and get torched by the cauldrons.
Map to the Underworld

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Resurrection?

Redundant churches in UK towns are increasingly becoming unserious places. The most common new uses for an old church are as blocks of apartments, community centres, recording studios and libraries though some have found a more exotic destiny. St Benedict's church in Manchester has become the Manchester Climbing Centre and a vertical wall with moulded footholds now occupies its tall nave (see photo gallery). Churches have been turned into pubs too: Wetherspoon's, a pub chain, has recently taken over an 18th-century Baptist church in Folkestone, keeping organ pipes and stained glass in place. In Cheltenham, people can go and drink in the Pulpit, another ex-church. And if the project is granted planning permission, a church in Westminster in London will soon become a health spa, with a nail bar in the crypt and a sauna in the chancel.

I find it extremely interesting that religion is in such decline people feel a need to use these spaces. America has experienced similar trends but not on such an evident scale. In Europe space is more premium, but a church to a pub? Wow, ok you brits get your drink on if you must. Though they might have finally found a way for me to get to church for once.
Repent and Rebuild

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Evolution

Its pretty amazing to actually be able to tell as species evolve. Two instances captured recently are out to show how gorilla's are adapting to today's world. An infant gorilla in a Congo sanctuary is smashing palm nuts between two rocks to extract oil, surprising and intriguing scientists who say they have much to learn about what gorillas can do -- and about what that says about evolution. Scientists said that the finding indicates that complex tool use may not be a trait developed only by humans and chimpanzees, and could have its origins earlier in the evolutionary chain, among ancestors common to both humans and our closest relatives the great apes. They believed Itebero, named for a place near where she was found, started cracking nuts spontaneously and had not been influenced by the time she has spent among humans. Earlier this year, researchers reported observing gorillas in the wild in the neighboring Republic of Congo's rain forests using simple tools, according to a team led by Thomas Breuer of the Wildlife Conservation Society at the Bronx Zoo. In an e-mail message Monday from the Republic of Congo's Nouabale-Ndoki National Park, Breuer said that in 10 years of observation, his team had seen only two instances of tool use among gorillas. In one a stick was used to test the depth of a pond and in another a small tree trunk was used for support and as a bridge. Its pretty cool to watch what is second nature to us, and comprehend how amazing it is for animals to display this behavior.
stick in the mud
crackin nuts

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FINALLY

Here comes the solution to all those long keg lines. This will revolutionize keggers and hs parties across the globe. With three spigots and a foot-operated pump, buzz loss is now a thing of the past. Your parties in the past may have dragged on for a tedious hour, frustration building with each passing second. But now you should be able to drain the keg and cover the kitchen floor with a frothy layer of delicious vomit within 12 minutes. UGGGH i know that one too well.

sorry for the delay on the post people but work has been slipping me up. MAJORLY
2 years too late

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just another ipod

Here we go again. Just another day at the Apple, just another announcement. INTRODUCING...............(drumroll)....................................
VIDEO IPOD

The new iPod is has 16x9 screen, 320x340 pixels and 260,000 colors and does realtime decoding of MPEG4 and H.264 at 30fps. It has video out. The 30GB for $299 and 60GB for $399 will be out next week. The 60GB model is thinner than the current 20GB. The 30GB holds 75 hours of video. They come in white and black. They go on sale late next week—the new tagline is “watch your music.” The new ad has Eminem in silhouette campaign. Ok so the 60 gig version is slimmer than my current 3rd generation (thanks boris) 20 gig model. You can also buy tv shows and do your own video podcasts. Watch out for my show.
lets get it started
the big announcement

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the magic paintbrush

The I/O Brush houses a small CCD video camera in its tip with a ring of white LEDs around it. Force sensors are also embedded inside of the brush, measuring the pressure that is getting applied to the bristles. When the brush touches a surface, the lights around the camera briefly turn on to provide supplemental light for the camera. During that time, the system grabs the frames from the camera and stores them in the program. This thing is extremely rad. Comes from you guessed it.......MIT. I/O Brush is a new drawing tool to explore colors, textures, and movements found in everyday materials by "picking up" and drawing with them. Its the first of its kind to combine real environments directly into the digital alternative. WOW
liquid sunshine
more liquid sunshine

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silly retarded robot

This is awesome stuff from CNET>"Robonaut, which NASA hopes to place on a shuttle flight in about 18 months, is one of a series of robots the space agency is developing to assist humans in outer space.

Others include Tendril, a robotic cable a centimeter in diameter that can snake into tight spaces and take pictures, and Scout, a four-wheel planetary rover, about the size of a golf cart, that will ferry astronauts around or carry their oxygen and other gear on planetary hikes.

Then there's Spidernaut, a 600-pound mechanical arachnid that will crawl around on the outside of space craft to fix things. Although it weighs considerably more than a person, its eight-leg design distributes the weight in manner that makes the robot's footfalls less potentially damaging to the skin of a spacecraft than those of a two-legged human.

The humanoid Robonaut will function something like an astronaut's assistant, Ambrose said. It can open doors, use a drill, climb ladders and perform other manual tasks with its two arms and two hands. Its head comes with stereoscopic cameras and a light-emitting diode, or LED, for illuminating surfaces.

Robonaut conceivably will anchor itself with all of the appropriate equipment required to perform an outer-space operation. Humans, who are much faster and more dexterous than robots but can carry only a limited amount of oxygen, will presumably pop outside to perform specific tasks and leave Robonaut out there to clean up.

HAHA. this robot looks hilarious. what a pansy!
R2 is that you?

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Haight Skate: Snow style

CURSES! San Francisco gets all the cool stuff. I can complain since i used to live there. Stuff like Icer 2005 makes SF what it is. Anyone who has ever skiied(you ski if you are uncool and suck at life) or snowboarded (all you pimps out there), has dreamed of burning through a city. San Francisco would be at the top of anyone's list too. More than 200 tons of crushed ice were trucked in, and a kicker was built on the Fillmore Street hill. Then, under a perfect blue sky, 20 of the world's best skiers and snowboarders did their thing. We used to watch people bomb down the hills on skates and its where i got started skateboarding for real. Only Californians would be crazy enough to do this and actually do it.
Hella cool

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NASACAR

Peter Diamandis, founder of the aerospace Ansari X Prize, plans to turn what sounds like science fiction into reality in about a year. At a ceremony Monday in New York, Diamandis unveiled the Rocket Racing League as its co-founder and chairman. "For me, it is a remembrance of sort of 'Star Wars' pod racing," said Diamandis, referring to the rocket race portrayed in 1999's "Star Wars: Episode I -- The Phantom Menace." Instead of a long time ago in another galaxy far, far away, these races aim to begin in October 2006 when Diamandis hopes to hold an exhibition event with four so-called X-Racer planes. A typical hourlong race imagines a spectacular X-Racer liftoff allowing fans to follow each rocket plane by tracking their 20-foot exhaust plumes and watching large-screen TVs. Streaming multi-angle video would be available from each aircraft, showing cockpit, "on-track" and "side-by-side" and wing-angle views. Fans also would be able to track races by using hand-held GPS devices connected to WiFi systems. The rocket planes will have a liquid oxygen/kerosene fuel mix, calculated to have a burn time of four minutes, requiring pilots to shut down their engines repeatedly and glide, then restart to pass opponents at up to 300 mph. The race course would be two miles long, a mile wide and about 5,000 feet high. So far 1 prototype has been built, conveniently called the ez-rocket. I know nascar is insanely addictive, but how can it be to watch a plane a couple thousand feet up. People love the destruction of NASCAR, destruction here means death. RedBull Air Race might have just been 1-upped.
GoGo GadgetRocketShipCarThing

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Moo Shoo Skate

Influx, one of my favorite sites...even if they ignore my emails has a great post today. I had to relay...So Danny Way jumped over the Great Wall this summer, and now China is building the world's largest skatepark. And trust me its ginormous to be understated. Its currently coming in at around 12,000 square meters!
"Clearly, China wants to be the global power in extreme sports. China even has a government minister in charge of extreme sports, a position that Tony Hawk probably comes closest to occupying here in the US. One could easily be lulled into believing the becoming an extreme sports power was the last thing on China's mind. However, it makes sense, as thanks to the efforts of ESPN, its now a global sport that has the eyes of millions of young adults worldwide, eyes that will increasingly looking to China for the latest events. The other point it raises is how fast China is moving. It is easy and comforting to assume that there is a linear progression to China's development: from agrarian to industrial to information. What if industrial and information occur simultaneously, like they are? What if China's development curve looks less like our all history books on the development of civilization and more like Moore's Law?" hmm influx always asks the good ones...
Skate or Die

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The dreaded wake up call

Roomie Snores? Sister has no job, sleeps all day? Have a Rip Van Winkle in your house? Need to wake someone up PRONTO? No reason to let them off easy now that the Sonic Alarm grenade is out. Complete with 3 separate noise levels, all you do is grab the grenade, pull the pin, and throw. 20 seconds later, anyone near the device will start to cry and squirm around on the floor due to it’s ultra-high noise making capabilities. Goes for $16—and is worth every penny.
"Simply pull the pin, yell an emphatic “fire in the hole” and lob the grenade into the sleeper’s room. After ten seconds a very annoying and piercingly loud noise (there are three volume settings) will blast out from the alarm. That’s not all however, what makes this especially great is that to stop the alarm the sleeper has to find you so you can put the pin back in." If you really wanna torture them, throw the pin away. Thank you people for keeping this out of my father's hands.
Sonic Snoozer Nade

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Some new hotness

Lightchimes
Herbarium
Cameleon
Memento
Philips has created a buzz with the anouncement of some exciting new smart concept products and ideas that target the hip lifestyle consumer, which means you. The products include: THE CHAMELEON, a lamp shade that changes to match any color you 'show' it. MOMENTO stores the most cherished moments, recorded as short movie clips, and replays them as floating magical fragments in a glass ball. HERBARIUM, an intelligent greenhouse designed to provide the best climate for growing health-giving herbs from smart seed pads. LED Bulbs can be (re) adjusted by twisting for the color and atmosphere right at the source. Hmmmm who doesnt want to grow herb ehem herbs in a light box tube thingie? Im glad to see someone out there is thinking besides apple.
ohhhhlala Phillips gets mad crazy inventive

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Your Brain sponsored by Google

Google Inc. has offered to blanket San Francisco with free wireless Internet access at no cost to the city. The offer by the popular Mountain View search engine was one of more than a dozen competing bids received by the city before its deadline Friday. Officials will review the submissions and decide which, if any, of the candidates gets the green light to build the so called Wi-Fi service, which would be free or inexpensive for users. In joining the competition, Google is showing yet another sign of its ambition. In the past few months, the company has released a succession of new products, including instant messaging and Internet telephone calls, that take it further from its roots. The proposal raises speculation that Google intends to create a free national Wi-Fi network, a business in which the company has limited experience. If so, it could pose a serious challenge to existing Internet service providers such as SBC-Yahoo, Earthlink, Comcast and America Online, which charge subscriptions for wire connections.

This is old news at this point, but Google seems hellbent on dominating the information in our world. Not only will they own search but how access that search. Slowly but surely they will takeover other areas like mcdonalds and general motors. Eventually we will all lie in cryogenetic tubes being feud intraneurally by Feeder Google machines. scary stuff. i wonder how the other bids look.
a google places to get online

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